The invention relates to a packaged product including a non-packaged product and including a container which accommodates the non-packaged product and which has at least one container wall and at least one opening which allows access to the non-packaged product, and including a foil wrapper which wholly envelops the container together with the non-packaged product accommodated therein and which lies against the at least one wall and covers the opening in the container and is made of a heat-shrinkable foil and has been provided with a perforation which comprises a succession of adjacent perforation holes and extends over a given circumferential portion of the packaged product, which perforation extends parallel to a cross-sectional zone of the container, the cross-sectional zone extending across the opening in the container.
Such a packaged product of the type defined in the opening paragraph has been put onto the market by the Applicant and is consequently known. The known packaged product includes a magnetic-tape cassette as non-packaged product, which cassette is accommodated in a book-cover type container having two main walls, two short side walls and one long side wall and having no wall in the area of the narrow side opposite the long side wall, in which area it has the opening for access to the magnetic-tape cassette. The book-cover type container together with the magnetic-tape cassette contained therein is enclosed in a foil wrapper of a heat-shrinkable foil. The foil wrapper of the known packaged product has a perforation for easy opening of the foil wrapper, the perforation being situated in a cross-sectional plane of the container, which plane extends parallel to the two short side walls of the container, and extending over both main walls of the container as well as over the long side wall of the container and over the container opening which faces the one long side wall of the container. As a result of this design of the perforation the perforation extends not only in areas in which the heat-shrinkable foil lies against the walls of the container but also in the area in which the perforation lies across the opening in the container. In this area the inner side of the heat-shrinkable foil does not lie against a container wall but extends freely at a small distance from the magnetic-tape cassette in the container. Owing to the design described above the known packaged product exhibits the problem that during the heat shrinking process, in which the sealed foil wrapped around the container including the magnetic-tape cassette is subjected to shrinking under the influence of heat, the foil is likely to be torn open inadvertently in the area where the perforation extends across the opening in the container, which not only detracts from the appearance but which is particularly unfavorable because it readily allows the ingress of dust and liquid or at least moisture into the interior of the packaged product at the torn-open spots, which is disadvantageous and therefore undesirable.
It is an object of the invention to preclude the afore-mentioned problems and to provide an improved packaged product for which tearing open of the perforation as a result of heat-shrinking of the heat-shrinkable foil has been precluded.
According to the invention, in order to achieve this object with a packaged product of the type defined in the opening paragraph the foil wrapper only has perforation holes forming the perforation in its area which lies against the at least one container wall, and the foil wrapper has no perforation holes in its area which covers the opening in the container.
By taking the measures in accordance with the invention it is achieved in a very simple manner that the perforation of a packaged product in accordance with the invention extends only in those areas where the heat-shrinkable foil lies directly against a wall of the container of the packaged product, which has the advantage that during a heat-shrinking process the heat applied to the foil in the area of the perforation can readily be transferred to the underlying walls of the container, as a result of which the perforation is not subjected to any significant mechanical loads resulting from the application of heat and, consequently, no undesired tearing open of the foil along the perforation in the areas in which the perforation directly adjoins the container walls underneath it, and which further has the advantage that there is no perforation at all in the foil area which extends over the opening in the container, as a result of which tearing open along a perforation is neither possible in this area.
In a packaged product in accordance with the invention the perforation may extend up to a location directly at the edge of the opening in the container. However, it has proved to be advantageous if the length of the part of the foil wrapper without perforation holes is greater than the dimension of the opening in the container in the area covered by the part of the foil wrapper not having any perforation holes, because as a result of this the likelihood that the foils is not torn open in its area which covers the opening is particularly great.
A packaged product in accordance with the invention may include for example as non-packaged product a perfume bottle accommodated in a container in the form of a folding box, the folding box having at least one opening to display the perfume bottle. A multitude of further variants of the packaged product in accordance with the invention are possible. It has proved to be particularly advantageous if a packaged product in accordance with the invention is defined by a box holding a magnetic tape cassette, wherein the box includes two main walls, two short side walls, one long side wall, and one long side opening.
The above-mentioned as well as further aspects of the invention will become apparent from the embodiment described hereinafter by way of example and will be elucidated with reference to this example.